Bet you didn’t know that showers had operating systems.

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Originally uploaded by Dan Szuc of Apogee Hong Kong.

I believe Samsung has surpassed Apple with this OOBE…

Samsung Omnia i900 Unboxing: Greatest. Packaging. Ever. :: Digg

Tags: OOBE, mobile, UX

Gizmodo cites an article from the Australian site PC Authority that claims the computer mouse is going the way of the dodo.

The main thrust of the argument is that alternate input devices and modes will soon supersede the mouse.

I’m not saying that the computer input domain isn’t ripe for a paradigm shift. It is. But five years seems a little soon.

Then again, what’s that quote about humans always overestimating how much change will occur in the short term, but underestimating change in the long term?

Mouse RIP: Computer Mouse R.I.P. In Five Years, Experts Say :: Gizmodo
Computer Mouse Heading For Extinction :: PC Authority

I’ve been meaning to blog this for months. Finally remembered.

My aftermarket car radio has a major, dangerous design flaw: the Power/Source button - yes, it functions as both an on/off and an input source switch - must be PRESSED and HELD for approximately THREE SECONDS in order to turn the unit on or off. (If you press without holding, it switches between radio, CD, and auxiliary input.)

Think about that for a second. A device that is DESIGNED to be used while the user is driving a vehicle requires a THREE SECOND PRESS AND HOLD. In other words, the designers thought that is was perfectly reasonable to have the driver remove their hand from the steering wheel for a three-count. And I should add that there’s no tactile feedback; you must observe the unit’s panel to ensure that the unit has powered on or off.

That is poor-bordering-on-negligent design. Scratch that. It *is* negligent design. Who thought that this was an OK design decision?

I’ll go out to the car over lunch and get the manufacturer and model number, so I can name names.

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I just bought the girls the movie Ratatouille this weekend. Included on the DVD is a Pixar short called “Lifted”, a funny little bit about two LGM’s (little green men; aka aliens) practicing their abduction via tractor-beam skills on a sleeping farmer.The smaller LGM, in training to operate the tractor beam system, is quite daunted by the hundreds and hundreds of identical little switches, makes some hilarious errors of commission (as well as one big error of omission), and finally becomes frustrated, with hilariously slapstick results.

Worth seeing. Follow this link to watch a low-res version.

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This summer it was consistently above 100F here in Atlanta, and our upstairs air conditioning just couldn’t keep up. So we bought a small flotilla of fans: one each for the girls and one for our room.

It sure is nice to have a remote with our bedroom fan…but I’m a little mystified by the iconography. I’m sure I’ll figure it out, but…they’re kind of opaque to me.

A couple of people commented on this pic at its Flickr page, and here are some of the functionality guesses:

• The area labeled “Remote”: Dano says that’s the “OK” button. Turns out it’s not even a button; it’s just a big-@ss label on a protruding piece of plastic. Good guess though. (It’s hard to tell from the picture alone. You’d have to feel it to know.)
• The button with the hurricane icon: Cecily says that’s the oscillation button. She is correct.
• “Ion”: Cecily says it’s some ionic air-cleaning function. To be honest, I have no idea what this does. There’s a matching button on the unit’s panel, and I just haven’t futzed with it. For all I know if opens a portal to an alternate universe. When it comes to fans, I just want air movement. That’s all.
• Clock icon: Cecily says timer. She’s right.
• Fan icon: This is the fan speed controller.

Incidentally, that chrome button in the middle is the on-off button.

Also, my hand looks weird and puffy in this pic. What’s up with that?

Drop what you’re doing right now and go look at the screenshots of Android, Google’s open-source smartphone OS.

It’s…it’s…beautiful.

I want one. Now. Not now. Yesterday.

I know it’s not even a real phone yet, it’s just a reference design. But I want my next phone to run this platform. That’s how neat it looks.

A Visual Tour of Android’s UI - Engadget

Check out this article by David Pogue at the New York Times. He points out a number of usability flaws in Windows Mobile 6.

(If nytimes.com asks for a username and password, be sure to try Bugmenot, a site for generating username/passwords and skipping registration on annoying, intrusive sites.) 

Reaching for Apple, Falling Short

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I saw this neat (but slightly flawed) UI on a water dispenser at Whole Foods yesterday. (Yes I know it’s shocking, but we do have them in Atlanta.) What’s good about this design? Well, by requiring that the user press two buttons simultaneously to dispense hot water, the designers have ensured that virtually no one will unintentionally get hot water. That’s a simple yet effective means to prevent an error of commission.

The design isn’t foolproof however. The original design relies on a single-word label (”Hot”) and a spare, minimalistic bracket graphic that visually connects the two red buttons with the label. Evidently this hasn’t been enough information for the average Whole Foods customer, because someone at Whole Foods decided that the unit needed a little more labelage. Note the sign at bottom.

Whoever made that sign took care to ensure that the user would make the connection between the sign and the panel - they replicated the hot buttons’ appearance, color, and orientation.

I can just picture the events that led the Whole Foods person to create the sign. They probably grew tired of being asked how to get hot water out of the dispenser, and decided it would be easier to make a little post-hoc design addition. Good call.

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A few weeks ago I was fortunate to have one of those “ahhh…*this* is how it should work!” moments. What happened? They replaced a few of the microwaves in the break room at my office. Two of these rotary-knob beauties turned up one day. It made me realize just how wrong-headed the “standard” UI microwave is for the most common use scenario, which is of course to nuke leftovers quickly.

The typical microwave oven UI has a touchpad - strike one right there - and requires at least 3 button pushes to get your food a-heatin’. And since half the microwaves in the world are designed “verb-noun-verb” (”Time Cook-Put your time in-Start”) and the other half are “implicit verb-noun-verb” (”Put your time in-Start”), you’re constantly experiencing negative learning between home and work. See below for a pic of the typical microwave UI.

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The unit with the rotary knob, in contrast, is drop-dead simple to figure out and even simpler to operate. Just twist and wait. If you’re like me and hate to over-zap food in the micro, it’s easy to undercook, check the food, undercook again, check the food, etc.

On the standard microwave, that process is a total drudge. And all the while my food is cooling down while I “reprogram” the microwave. Which totally messes up my obsessive-compulsive calculations about optimal heating time.

The timer knob on this unit is nice and weighty, like the old stereo volume knobs from the early 80’s. And it has perfectly-designed detents at each 10-second interval. Not too deep but not too shallow either.

Sure, you lose a little bit of fine-grained control because you can only set it in 10-second chunks. But for me, that tradeoff makes perfect sense. And anyway, if you’re anything like me you always press “33″ for a 30-second zap, “44″ for 45 seconds, and “55″ or “66″ for a one-minute nuking. Because it’s a *pain* to jump from one number to another on the touchpad, that’s why…

If ever there was an iPod-like feeling of deep satisfaction to gain from using a microwave, it can be gained from this unit.

Joel Spolsky also has issues with Vista. Hilariously (or tragically, depending on your perspective), he also had trouble even opening up the friggin’ box. That’s a HUGE miss, as he mentions.

Even the Office 2007 box has a learning curve - Joel on Software

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I walked by this fax machine for a year before I realized that it had a gunky, peeling sticker on it that displayed the phone number associated with the machine.

There really should be a place on the unit itself to indicate the phone number. Not a big problem, but still.

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Yesterday a co-worker showed me this system function diagram for an in-dash navigation system. I just had to take a picture of it.

It’s from the owner’s manual for his new Honda Ridgeline SUV. It’s darn interesting, I’ll say that. I’ve never encountered system documentation like this.

I’m on the fence as to its usefulness. But I could stare at it all day; it’s just hypnotic. What do y’all think of it? (Be sure to click on the picture to see it full-sized.)

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Finally, in frustration I scrolled to the bottom of the list. I still didn’t see it. Then I scrolled back up to the top, and looked carefully at each batch of model numbers. I finally found the 640m…it was appended to model E1405 with a slash. At this point, I had spent about 3 or 4 minutes on a task that should take 5 or 10 seconds.

In other words, Dell expected me to know that my model laptop was released with another model number, and that I should look for “E1405″ when I wanted to access support for my 640m.

Give me a break. That’s just laziness. It would’ve been the easiest thing in the world to just put “640m” in the product model list, and have it lead to the same page as the E1405’s. Sigh.

Lest anyone think I was too negative toward Todd the Adaptive Pathite the other day, I wanted to point to a fantastic article by Adaptive Path’s leader Jesse James Garrett.

It’s about peripherals manufacturer Kensington’s decision to focus on the total user experience as a means to differentiate themselves from their much larger competitors. Quoting Jesse:

Kensington has chosen to opt out of the technology arms race and turned to product experience as a competitive advantage. The result is Kensington’s Ci Lifestyle Collection, a new line of mice and keyboards for home and mobile users designed with extensive field research on customer experience in mind.

Jesse interviewed the product manager responsible for the line as well. Definitely worth a read.

Link to article is here.

If attacked by a giant segmented worm, throw thick spears at it while running.

If your accordion expands uncontrollably, you should duck underneath it.

Caution: running underneath staircase may cause lengthening of the arm and loss of neck.

If you have any interpretations to share, comment away and I’ll update.

Too funny not to share. Gizmodo posted a link to a parody video of Microsoft’s recent “Surface” video. You know, that “AT&T-you-will-someday” type of futuristic sci-fi.

Let’s see if my copy/paste embed fu is up to the task:

The online version of The New Yorker published an insightful article on that annoying phenomenon known as feature creep. From the article:

Technology is supposed to make our lives easier, allowing us to do things more quickly and efficiently. But too often it seems to make things harder, leaving us with fifty-button remote controls, digital cameras with hundreds of mysterious features and book-length manuals, and cars with dashboard systems worthy of the space shuttle.

This spiral of complexity, often called “feature creep,� costs consumers time, but it also costs businesses money. Product returns in the U.S. cost a hundred billion dollars a year, and a recent study by Elke den Ouden, of Philips Electronics, found that at least half of returned products have nothing wrong with them. Consumers just couldn’t figure out how to use them.

As folks who work in tech, I think we all know why this happens: too much focus on the corner case and the feature matrix.

Nice to see the popular press picking up on this issue. Direct link to the article is here.

Last week in the Washington Post an article appeared describing how landmine-detonating robots being used in Iraq and Afghanistan were the objects of much affection in the field. This should not be surprising to anyone who works with systems that people depend on for critical tasks. Says the Washington Post:

Humans have long displayed an uncanny ability to make emotional connections with their manufactured helpmates…Now that our creations display elements of intelligence, however, the
bonds humans forge with their machines are even more impressive.

No kidding. I love my Sony Ericsson K750i with a passion. And my iPod - fuhgeddaboutit.

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In a post somewhat related to my “the desktop metaphor is dead” diatribes, my favorite open-source pinko commie has written about how and why the desktop OS is inching its way to irrelevance.

I think I agree. Google and a few other web-based productivity tool vendor are either furiously working on or already releasing beta versions of their software that allow the user to work in offline mode.

The day is coming when you will start your computer thusly:

• You turn on your machine.
• A very lightweight OS is loaded; it could be GNU/Linux, Open BSD, whatevah. It doesn’t even necessarily have to have a significant amount of GUI itself; it only needs to be able to display a browser via a GUI.
• The OS loads a TCP/IP communications stack, device drivers, and searches for a (wired or wireless) connection, authenticating itself as appropriate.
• An (open-source of course) browser opens, and presents some or all of the projects, documents, spreadsheets, etc. the user is working with.
• The user works. Through the magick of AJAX all the user’s content is implicitly saved.
• If for some reason the user’s PC goes offline, the applications automatically go into offline mode, saving up the changes the user has made, and adding them into the document when a connection is reestablished.

I truly believe it’s that simple. Of course this is basically the idea behind the network appliance that was touted by many a guru at the turn of the century. It didn’t pan out then for now-obvious reasons: the online productivity apps weren’t mature enough. Well, now they are.

And with good reason. Anyone who buys a new Windows PC is subjected to the kind of poor treatment Uncle Walt describes in his article: crippleware and for-pay services vying for your attention, wasted hard disk space, etc.

No more craplets. Please.

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OK, my fine faxing friend. I just fed you eight pages of insurance policy + cover sheet, dialed the phone number, and pressed “Fax”.

You happily snarfed up the pages from your automatic document feeder, sent them out your bottom, and flashed a “Dialling” message at me. But here’s the thing: you did nothing after that.

You didn’t sound a dial tone and make dialling noises. You didn’t screech a “connected” tone. You didn’t show me any other messages like “Sending” or “Transmitting.” You did nothing for a good minute and a half. You didn’t show me an error message. You just left me standing there, wondering if you did what I asked.

(Yes, I checked that you had dial tone before I loaded you.)

You know what I did then, Brother Intellifax 4100? I walked over to your colleague and rival, Canon Laser Class 7000.

Canon Laser Class 7000 snarfed my insurance policy + cover sheet, told me it was “Dialling”, made a big production of loudly dialling and connecting, then told me it was “Transmitting.”

When Canon Laser Class 7000 finished, it was nice enough to tell me that “8 pages [were] faxed OK.” (And it printed a transmission summary, which I didn’t exactly need, but hey, it was nice of it anyway.)

Sorry, Brother Intellifax 4100. You lost the job.

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Roomba Discovery

Well, it didn’t take long to answer the most important Roomba question. While unboxing, our 7 year-old noticed the buttons labeled “Max” and “Power”, and decided that Roomba should be named Max Power.Susan wants to name it Fred, however.

We’ll see who prevails.

Today Susan and I bought a Roomba. Yay! My first robot.

Some questions I know I’m going to have:

• What’s setup going to be like?
• Will it really just work, or am I going to have to follow it around shouting “No Roomba! Don’t vacuum up my toddler!”
• Will I soon have that “how did I ever live without this” feeling, or will it be a big letdown?

And most importantly: Will we name it?

I’ll report back in a few.

Found this article on installing Ubuntu Linux in my web meanderings. A blogger who looks an awful lot like a young Newt Gingrich decided to rate the difficulty of installing Ubuntu as well as associated configuration tasks like setting up dual monitors, installing Wine (an open API that allows running Windows programs on Unix/X Window systems), getting WiFi to work, etc.

Not surprisingly, installing graphics drivers and a multi-monitor setup was very hard. Ya think? My readers (all three of you) will remember my epic n00b struggles with Linux. Sigh.

You Want Fries With That?

Ya gotta love when a robotics lab creates a monstrosity like the Morgui, a robot skull with a Terminator-like evil grin.

What does this have to do with usability, user experience, etc? Well, not much. But it sure is wicked cool.

But don’t forget, some day this thing will be taking your order at the local fast-food chain restaurant. (”Over ninety octillion hamburgers served…”)

Kyped from Engadget, who blogged it from here.

Face Down…

A few weeks ago I found a nice little artifact…it’s a sticky note attached to a fax machine at work.

Evidently everyone puts the paper in the wrong way.

Could it be because the little icon indicating paper orientation is so very hard to see?

Just read on Slashdot that the UI for the OLPC (”One Laptop Per Child”) is going to be “kid-tested” in February.

Oh. My. God.

They’ve already developed it and they haven’t tested it with kids yet?

Wow. No wonder our field has so much work. It’s dumb decisions like this one that keeps us all gainfully employed, cleaning up after the technologists’ mistakes.

You can take a gander at the OLPC’s UI, code-named “Sugar”, at this YouTube page.

Oh, and happy new year, everyone.

Alarming Saab Dashboard Message

I was a passenger in a VP’s car a couple of weeks ago, when this startling message popped up while motoring down a busy suburban road.

I asked the car’s owner if he’d ever seen the message before. He said it had been appearing and disappearing for weeks.

The first time he saw it, he was worried. When nothing bad happened (and his locks didn’t appear to have failed..), he just ignored the message.

Card Swiper Design Modification

She said that when the screen offers the three choices of “Credit” “Debit” and “[something else, I can't remember]“, too many people were pressing the white buttons instead of the black ones. So they covered the white buttons.

I just had to get a picture of it.

Various sites on the web are reporting first looks at the the “One Laptop Per Child” (OLPC) user interface. Try this link to see some screenshots.

If this is the first time you’ve heard of the OLPC, the short version is that Nicholas Negroponte and the MIT Media Lab are pushing the idea that every kid in developing countries should have a portable personal computer. You can learn more about the OLPC here.

As you may have gathered from the title of this post, I don’t think this is such a hot idea. I think Negroponte and the Media Lab are too sanguine about the “transformative” power of technology. There are too many unmet basic needs in developing countries. What the hell is a bunch of laptops going to do for these people?

My favorite time waster-slash-guilty pleasure weblog, Engadget, has posted a surprisingly thorough review of the new Microsoft digital audio player, the Zune.

The review is here: http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/15/zune-review/.

This review is better than most popular press reviews in that it touches on scenario- and task-based usability issues, as well as describing in great detail what it’s like to actually operate the Zune’s physical and onscreen controls.

Unfortunately for Microsoft, the Zune doesn’t fare so well in the review. I’m not a reflexive Microsoft-hater; in fact I was hoping that M$ would come up with something good enough to motivate Apple to flesh out the iPod feature set a bit more. Alas, the Zune doesn’t seem to be that something.

As I continued browsing the Making Life Easy site, I stumbled across a picture of the low-flow toilet they praise as very usable.

I’m almost certain that this reaction is coming from my US-centric, don’t-like-to-think-about-or-acknowledge-bodily-functions cultural baggage…but does this particular potty make anyone else go “yuck!”?

I mean, I know intellectually that the water going into the toilet tank up top is as clean as the water coming out of a faucet tap, or for that matter, a drinking fountain. But there’s something skeevy about this design that adds up to a negative user experience for me.

I’m sure it’s a me thing…